Home        About Us        Spiritual Growth        Training and Support        Store        Donations        Contact Us

Lectionary Study - May 25th 2008

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 49:8-16a; Matthew 6:24-34; I Corinthians 4:1-5

This is the 8^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  But how can it be the 8^th Sunday?  Didn’t Ordinary Time just begin last Sunday, and should that not make this the 2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time?  Not really.  The first season of Ordinary Time is actually between the observance of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday.  The time between Epiphany (which is on January 6 of each year) and Ash Wednesday (which is the Wednesday before the first Sunday in Lent) is a season of Ordinary Time.  Some liturgists prefer to call that period Epiphany Season (as I do, in order to keep us centered on the story of Jesus) and others call it Ordinary Time.  In liturgical circles, it is called both, according to preference.  Of course, the beginning of Lent is determined by the date of Easter in a given year.  Therefore, the number of Sundays between Epiphany Day and Ash Wednesday fluctuate.  Since Easter was on March 23 in 2008, then Ash Wednesday had to be on February 6.  Consequently, that made five Sundays between January 6 and February 6 (including Epiphany Sunday itself).  That, in turn, makes May 18 (Trinity Sunday) the 7^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  And that, consequently, makes this Sunday the 8^th Sunday in Ordinary Time! 

Isaiah 49:8-16a is a powerful poetic prophecy regarding God’s servant, Israel (cf. 49:3), on their release from Babylonian captivity and their return to Palestine from exile.  As such, it is a commentary on the Servant’s Mission presented in 49:1-7.

Yahweh God speaks this prophecy through the Isaiac prophet.  God begins by stressing that while they were in Babylonian exile, God had watched over them and protected them.  “I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritage” (vs. 8b).  Israel was in Babylonian exile because they had so consistently disregarded the covenant between God and themselves, and were unfaithful to the building of a shalom society of justice, economic equity and relationship with God.  Exile was necessary both to bring the people to an awareness of the gravity of their sin and to gain their national, corporate and individual repentance.  But now it was time for them to be restored to their land and constituted a new servant people.

“(I) say to the prisoners, “Come out,” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”  They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead then, and by springs of water will guide them.  And I will turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways shall be raised up.  Lo, these shall come from far away, and lo, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syere” (vss. 9-12).

Isaiah proclaims a great homecoming.  Israel will be miraculously released from Babylonian captivity.  The result will be a new Exodus in which the former exiles will return to Palestine from the former Babylon, the former Assyria and even from Egypt (the reference to Syere is another name for the Jewish colony on the island of Elephantine in Egypt, to which Jews fled from the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem).  But this Exodus will not be like the former exodus, for these released Israelites will return to Jerusalem without facing hunger or thirst (e.g., Exod. 15:22-25; 16:1-36; 17:1-7; Num. 11:1-35; 20:2-13), nor will they face inhospitable or torturous terrain (cf. Isa. 35:5-10; 40:4; 41:14-16, 18-20; 42:15-16; 43:19-20).  Rather, the journey of the released exiles from Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt will be a “triumphant procession”, a homecoming celebrated by all Jews everywhere.

The result would be a great celebration at their return!  “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!  For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones” (vs. 13).  All of Israel will rejoice at the return of their brothers and sisters.  And they will rejoice, not only because the enslaved have been freed, and not only because all Israelites will be restored to their Promised Land to once again seek to create that Shalom community to which they were called.  Israel will rejoice because the miraculous deliverance of the Israelite exiles will be the clearest of indications that their God loves and cherishes them immensely, and has “compassion on his suffering ones”!

The prophecy then moves to its final crescendo.  “But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me”.  Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands” (vss. 14-16a)!

The Israelites, still in captivity, dare not believe this good news that is prophesied to them.  From their dungeons and house arrest in this strange and hostile land of Babylonia, they cannot even consider the possibility that their release may come.  The idea is simply unthinkable!

But then God speaks with words those frightened, cautious exiles cannot deny.  There is nothing more unbelievable than the thought that a woman will forget the child whom she bore and who is now nursing at her breast.  Yet, that will happen before God will forget about her children.  A human mother’s compassion will wane, but the compassion of the divine Mother will never wane, for it is unfailing.

Then comes the most graphic promise of all.  “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands”.  The Hebrew word for “covenant” is berith, which literally means “to cut”.  What God is reminding Israel with this statement is that it was in the first Exodus, at Mount Sinai, in the giving of the Ten Commandments, that God “cut” Israel into “the palms of his hands”.  When God made covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai, he intentionally defaced himself.  God would never be the same again because of the covenant he had made with his chosen people.  Therefore, every time God would open his hands, he would be reminded of his eternal relationship with them – even when they were an exiled, captive people!  That is why there is greater likelihood of a mother forgetting her child at her breast than for God to forget her exiled people! 

This is a prophecy about priorities.  It was intended as the most vivid reminder to a people who perceived themselves as forgotten and rejected by God that they were indeed still precious in his sight.  God would one day vindicate them and set them free.  It was a reminder to Israel that they were his servant people who were now in the greatest need of being served!  Nothing, Isaiah proclaimed, is more important to God than the people God had called out of bondage to be a people for God’s own possession (Exod. 10:4-6; Deut. 7:6).  No wealth, no power, no position, no status, no nothing was more important to God than God’s relationship with God’s people.  God is positively addicted to a loving relationship with God’s people.  Therefore, it was more likely for a mother to forget the child at her breast than for God to forget Israel.  For God had permanently defaced himself to remind himself of his commitment and love to that “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (I Peter 2:9), a people of which we who name the name of Jesus as Savior and Lord are privileged to be a part!  It is God’s love for us which is God’s highest priority!

Matthew 6:24-34 is a strategic part of what is the most dominating portion of Matthew’s Gospel – the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5-7).  This collection of Jesus’ sayings is, in essence, the setting-forth of a new Law for God’s new chosen people – the followers of Jesus (rather than Moses).  This new Law is dramatically presented in a series of comparisons of the Law of Moses and the Law of Jesus.  These comparisons follow a literary format.  The format begins, “You have heard that it was said”, and is then followed by a quotation from the Law.  This quotation is then followed by “But I say to you . . .” followed by the teaching of Jesus that is meant to replace that Law.

Thus, Jesus taught, “You have heard that it was said (in the Law), ‘Do no murder’.  But I say to you that if you angry with a brother, you will be liable to judgment” (Mt. 5:21-22).  If you treat people contemptuously, you are murdering them, Jesus insisted.

The Law says, “Do not commit adultery”.  But Jesus calls his followers to live by the recognition that to look at any human being with lust is an act of rape (vv. 27-30).  The Law says, “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce”.  Jesus insists that his disciples must recognize divorce as the destruction of human relationships and therefore inappropriate for Christians (vv. 31-32).  The Law says, “Do not break your oath”.  But Jesus calls Christians to operate, not by promised intentions, but by direct and transparent actions (vv. 33-37).  The Law says “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth”.  Jesus expects those who follow him to live with a spirit of forgiveness, not of retribution (vv. 38-42).  The Law says, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy”.  Jesus calls his disciples to build their society on compassionate concern for all its people – and in particular the enemy – irrespective of how one might feel about any of them (vv. 43-48).

In other words, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ call to the Israelite community to live by a higher law than the Law of Moses.  That “higher law” calls them to be compassionately involved with the poor and needy (6:1-4), practicing a life of intercessory prayer (vv. 5-15), committed to personal spiritual formation (vv. 16-18) and living out of an unobtrusive spirit (vv. 1-18).  Jesus’ people have decided not to pursue unilateral power (7:15-23), prestige (6:16-18), the accumulation of possessions (6:24-34) or the advocacy of their own little cause to the exclusion of all others (7:1-6, 13-14).  Because they are living by this higher Law of Jesus, they will be free of worry (6:25-34) and the need to live judgmental lives (7:1-6).  Instead, they will live open and receptive lives (7:7-12).  This is the new Law to which God’s people are being called, the Law of Jesus that supersedes even the Law of the scribes and Pharisees.  

Matthew 6:24-34 is the “money” portion of Jesus’ new law.  It deals with the personal implications of the economics of the Kingdom of God.  As such, it is all about both the church’s and the Christian’s priorities.

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth” (6:24).

This verse captures the essence of Jesus’ new Law regarding money.  A Christian cannot be double-minded.  He or she cannot serve God and Mammon.  If one serves Mammon, he/she cannot enter the Kingdom of God.  If one serves God, then Mammon will have no appeal to him or her.  “Choose you this day whom you will serve.  If Yahweh is God, follow him.  If Ba’al be God, then follow him” (I Kings 18:21).

The power of the gauntlet that Jesus is throwing down in front of the Christian is compromised by the translation of the Greek word Mamonas into English.  It is most often translated “wealth” (as in the translation we use for these lectionary commentaries – the New Revised Standard Version) or “gain”, “money” or “property”.  None of these translations actually catch the force of the word.

Mamonas (Mammon) was a god in the Greek pantheon!  He was the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament’s Ba’al!  Thus, Elijah’s challenge to Israel in I Kings 18 and Jesus’ challenge to the new Israel in this passage are virtually identical! 

Mamonas was the pagan god of worldly possessions (whether however much or however few one might have), property, money, gain and success.  It is intriguing that Matthew leaves the pagan name of this god in the text, rather than to substitute a Hebrew or Greek translation for it!  He wants us to recognize that what Jesus is saying here is that money isn’t simply money.  Mammon is a spiritual force that is so powerfully attractive that it captures the hearts, minds and imaginations of both people and their institutions and structures, corrupting them by their need to gather, to save, to hoard and to protect.  It is the worship of Mammon that causes political systems to grab for all the power that they can get and thus oppress the people.  It is the worship of Mammon that causes economic systems to become fixated on greed and thus exploitive of the people.  It is the worship of Mammon that makes religious and social systems to become obsessed with the need to control everything in life and thus end up dominating, using and destroying people.  Mammon is the God of scarcity!  And because he is the God of scarcity, he is always afraid that there won’t be enough and therefore one must grab for all that one can get!

But Yahweh is not a God of scarcity.  Jesus’ Father is the God of abundance!  God has made enough power and wealth and shalom for everybody.  It can never be given away to exhaustion!  So “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.  Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith” (6:28-30)?  “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?  Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (7:9-11)?  There is always enough in this world – and, in fact, more than enough – to go around, if you will just share equally all that you have!  God is the God of abundance!

Jesus has stated the New Law of the Kingdom of God in 6:24:  “You cannot Serve God and the god Mammon”.   He then applies that law in a most dramatic way to his primary followers – the peasants of Israel. 

“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  And why do you worry about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the over, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?  Therefore, do not worry, saying “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”  For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things will be given to you as well.  So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will brings worries of its own.  Today’s trouble is enough for today” (6:25-34).

Jesus is speaking dramatically and forcefully to his primary audience – the peasants – about the implications of Kingdom economics lived out in their lives.  And what he says is both profound and, if obeyed, liberating!      

The biggest and most abiding fear of every peasant was that he and his family might face significant enough economic reversal that they might slip into the “expendable” class of Israelite society!  This was a fate worse than death itself.

To understand the Israel of Jesus’ day, one must realize that the Jewish religious system was not primarily a religious institution.  It was an apparently religious body that had been designated by Rome with the responsibility of governing the Jewish nation.  That religious community was to share that responsibility in Judea with the Roman procurator, and in Galilee with the Herodian nobility (a favorite strategy of Rome’s to guarantee that not too much power would concentrate in the hands of one group or party).  But the priests’ primary role was to be the on-the-ground political operatives of Israel, controlling the legislative and judicial systems of Israel, maintaining peace among the people, and administering justice.  And they were to exercise this control through the religious apparatus of synagogues, the temple and the Mosaic Law (another policy of Rome, allowing the maximum home rule using local laws administered by local leaders).  We cannot appreciate what was occurring in Jesus’ continuing opposition to the Pharisees, Sadducees and the Jerusalem Clergy Aristocracy without understanding this fact.

Of course, a primary objective of these local religious-political leaders was to maintain themselves in power and in the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed.  The result was an enormous accumulation of wealth in the hands of Israel’s religious leaders, Herodian nobility and land-owners.  These native-born leaders of the people made up only two percent of the population, but they owned around 60 to 70 percent of the nation’s wealth (according to the economic particularities of any given time).  On the other hand, between 83 and 93 percent of the people were peasants (according to whether economic times were good or bad), made up primarily of farmers, fishermen and artisans (like Jesus, who was a carpenter).

The peasants perennially lived on the edge of economic disaster.  We can understand how perilous their status was if we consider the plight of the average farmer during Jesus’ lifetime.  A farmer didn’t own the land he farmed, but rented it from a landowner, religious leader or nobleman.  The farmer lived in a nearby town and walked out to his farm daily to care for it; he didn’t live on the land.  Typically, out of a given harvest, the average farmer paid 50 percent of that harvest to the owner of the land he farmed.  He paid an additional 25 percent of that harvest in taxes to Rome and to the Herodian nobility.  And he was required to give a 10 percent tithe of his harvest to the Jewish clergy authorities in Jerusalem.  Three percent would go to the village in which he lived in order to provide sufficient funds for emergency interest-free loans to any farmer in trouble.  Well, do the math!  If the above were the taxes, fees and overhead of doing business, this meant that the average farmer realized only about a 12 percent profit out of his harvest.  And that 12 percent had to be divided between his family’s annual income and the monies to purchase next year’s seed for farming!

Every peasant family lived in fear that one day they would slip over the edge into economic disaster and become one of the “expendables” of Israelite society.  The expendables of Israelite society included the beggars, the excess children of peasant farmers, the widows and orphans, the unclean and the shepherds.  The ranks of the expendables would be made up of between 5 percent of the population (if times were good) to 15 percent (if times were bad).  To have fallen into the expendable class meant that you were without predictable income, were dependent upon the generosity of the peasants (or, rarely, the elite), and were facing almost certain starvation and death.  Most of the people whom Jesus healed were the expendables.  Once becoming an expendable, the chance of you ever returning to the peasant class again was negligible.  To be forced by circumstance or by the greed of the Powers into the expendable class was the greatest fear of every Jewish peasant.  And it is to that fear that Jesus speaks in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount. 

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus is saying to Jewish peasants, desperately afraid of becoming expendables, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear” (vs. 25).  In other words, don’t put your trust in the god Mammon and his priorities of having enough food, drink and clothing to sustain you.  Place your trust instead in the God of abundance, Yahweh! 

Jesus uses an illustration of birds busy at their work of finding food, building nests and raising their young.  They are not being idle, for they are bustling with activity.  But they don’t become anxious about their future; rather, they sing in the midst of hard work.  Likewise, he uses the illustration of wildflowers springing to life in the field, again busy in “doing their thing”, but totally unmindful of the consequences that they will someday “be thrown into the oven”.  Both birds and flowers are examples to us about how we are to live – busy about life and its work, but not making work, the accumulation of money and security the sole or even primary focus of our lives and an end in itself.  “Today’s trouble is enough for today”.

One can appreciate the power with which Jesus is speaking when one realizes that when Jesus is translated to say, “Do not worry about your life”, what he is actually saying is “do not obsess about” food, drink or clothes.  Do not become so anxious about the state of your physical well-being and that of your family that you start to become obsessive about it.  The reason Jesus warns peasants not to obsess is because when one becomes totally preoccupied about “staying alive”, all he or she can do is to “stay alive”.  Life becomes a grim struggle to stay alive – to keep ahead, to “keep the wolf from the door”.  Serving the god Mammon is a depressing task!  For when you become obsessive about something, you become besieged with fear, and you forget your true reason for existing.  You forget that you are to “strive first for the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you as well” (vs. 33).  Thus, what Jesus is warning the peasants about is that money can be as big a problem for the poor as it can be for the wealthy. 

It is also important to note exactly what Jesus is saying here.  He is not minimizing the importance of adequate nutrition, clean drinking water and clothing for the poor.  He is not saying, “Do not worry about others lives, what they will eat or what they will drink or about their body, what they will wear”.  An overwhelming message of Jesus throughout all four gospels is the necessity for his followers to be obsessed about the poor, the hungry, the powerless and the impoverished (Matt. 14-15, 25:31-46).  What Jesus is saying in this passage is that we are to take our eyes off of a constant concern for our own material well-being so that our attention can be focused on the worship of God and therefore the service of all those who are hurting, impoverished or marginalized.  Dale Bruner says it best:

“The West is a consumption-centered world, much too concerned with food; it is a superficial world, too occupied with clothes.  The surfeited West must learn that God’s gift of life is much more important than gourmet cuisine, and that the gift of the body is much more important than haute couture.  Only when liberated from anxiety about our own food and clothes will we give deserved attention to the food and clothing of the Poor World.  Thus Jesus’ text is not antisocial; it is antiselfish.  It does not tell us to be unaxious about others’ food, but to be unanxious about our own”.[1] 

Jesus’ command is not antisocial; it is antiselfish!  According to Jesus, all of us are “poor”.  For the hungry are not only those people who lack bread, but those who lack love.  The thirsty are not simply those who need water; you and I may thirst for righteousness.  The naked are not simply those who seek to be clothed; you and I may long to be clothed in dignity, with a sense of being worthwhile or really wanted by someone.  Jesus was the very first to know and to teach that, in a profound sense, every human being is among the expendables – poor in heart if not in body.  All of us, from the greatest to the smallest, from the richest to the most oppressed, are people who have been deprived of some of those critical elements that contribute to making us whole, fulfilled, joyous, compassionate, God-filled people.  And that brings us to a very intriguing, but often obscured fact about Jesus – namely, that there were people in Israel whom Jesus did not like!

Jesus knew that the Jerusalem Clergy Aristocracy, the Pharisees and the Sadducces were sinners, spiritually destitute, controlled and manipulated by the very Roman and Hebrew systems that they believed they controlled and mastered.  These politically and economically powerful were as much in need of God’s transforming love as the lowest expendable or farmer or carpenter.  Jesus did not like those people who used their wealth or power or religion to separate themselves from the needy and to avoid responsibility, declaring “I am not like other men”.  But he did love them – and he yearned for them to discover their own poverty and to be humbled by it.

When people fail to perceive that their wealth may be depriving a poor person of the necessities of life, when they fail to see that their yearning for security may be causing political oppression to peasants in another country, when they fail to sense that their religion may be geared to make them feel good about themselves and the way they choose to live rather than helping them to perceive their need of God’s forgiveness and love, then, Jesus tells us, such people have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear.  Consequently, these people are enemies of God and of God’s Son.

But if, having much money or little, you are poor in heart; if, holding great political power or little, you hunger after a right relationship with God and justice for your nation’s weak; if, being actively involved in a church or on its fringes, you seek to love those in need and are “meek” or “little” before God – then you are a friend of Jesus.  You are one of those who can hear and receive the Good News he has for you!  Then, you are becoming the kind of person who is being exorcised from the control of the demon god, Mammon and being embraced by the loving and abundant God, Yahweh.  For then, you are starting to get your priorities right!

I Corinthians 4:1-5 also deals with the issue of priorities, examined through the metaphors of servant and steward.  Paul writes, “Think of us (apostolic leaders of the universal Church) as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.  Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.  But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.  I do not even judge myself.  I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.  It is the Lord who judges me.  Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.  Then each one will receive commendation from God” (4:1-5).

It is obvious by what Paul has written here that he feels himself judged and under attack by many in the Church of Corinth.  That church was divided into four competing groups (1:10-17), each of which named themselves after their supposed champion.  Thus, some claimed Paul as the founder of their group and championed their understanding of Paul’s theology; others were loyal to Paul’s successor as pastor of the church – Apollos. Still others claimed Peter as their champion, and held to a Judaizing theology.  Finally, those identifying with none of these competing groups (and perhaps ostracized by all three) formed their own party while practicing the ultimate one-upmanship by naming themselves “the Christ party”!  This division of the church into warring factions guaranteed that three-quarters of the church would vilify Paul as opposed to respect him and take him seriously.  It is to this confrontative reality that Paul speaks in today’s epistle lesson.

Paul states that he and all apostolic leaders (including Peter and Apollos) are the “servants” and “stewards of God’s mysteries” to the entire universal church.  They are “servants” – those who seek to help, support, encourage and call forth the church to be all that it has the potential to be in Christ.  And they are “stewards” – those who are the trustees or managers of God’s investment in the Corinthian and other churches.  The apostles, and therefore Paul in particular, are not charismatic leaders of the church upon which all attention should concentrate, but are instead “behind the scenes” people who are working to equip Christians and thus hone the church’s capacity, ability and willingness to be a “Christ” to the world.  Thus, God has invested in Paul and the other apostolic leaders a responsibility (or in fiscal terms, a “trust” to be managed).  Consequently, the only authentic evaluation that can be brought of their work is whether they have been “trust-worthy” or faithful to that responsibility of managing that which has been invested in them by God.

But who should make that evaluation of Paul’s stewardship?  Paul makes clear that it is not the Corinthian Church’s prerogative to evaluate him (vss. 2-3).  Nor should he evaluate himself, for any human being is inevitably going to be self-deceptive, judging himself by his intentions rather than his actions (vss. 3b-4).  There is only one who can evaluate whether Paul’s or any Christian’s stewardship of the trust invested in them has been truly served.  And that judge is God!  And that judgment will come, not upon the immediate performance of one’s work but at the end-time when that trust can be evaluated as to its impact upon the church long-term (vs 5).  Thus, the priorities of any obedient and faithful follower of the Christ needs to be fixed upon God’s ultimate evaluation of our work, not what other Christians or even non-Christians may think of it, nor even how we might judge our own work.   

(Copyright © 2008 by Partners in Urban Transformation)